covet

From Middle English coveten, coveiten, coveyten, from Old French covoitier (modern French convoiter), from covoitié (“desire”), presumably modified from Latin cupiditas.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʌvɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌvɪt

covet (third-person singular simple present covets, present participle coveting, simple past and past participle coveted)

1. (transitive) To wish for with eagerness; to desire possession of, often enviously.
   • 2025 December 6, “Netflix's WBD deal swaps history for fantasy”, in FT Weekend, Lex, page 24:

     What Netflix really covets is closer to its current competencies: WBD's “intellectual property”, or in plain English, franchises such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Friends, pictured, and The Sopranos.

2. (transitive) To long for inordinately or unlawfully; to hanker after (something forbidden).
3. (intransitive) To yearn; to have or indulge an inordinate desire, especially for another's possession.
   • 1991, Ted Tally, The Silence of the Lambs (motion picture), spoken by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins):

     No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.

• covetable
• coveter
• covetous

• “covet”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “covet”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.